Robot wars is best at box office

Check out the top 10 hottest films in UAE cinemas

By
Time Out staff
19 October 2011

So an X-Man swaps his killer claws for a role as a doting dad who becomes involved in an underworld of boxing robots to pay off a gambling debt. Following so far? Good. You’ll know which film we are talking about then. See which other movies this new release has beaten as best of the box office in the past week.

The Smurfs
In Raja Gosnell’s surreally awful live action-animation hybrid, the evil sorcerer Gargamel, played with self-respect-be-damned gusto by Hank Azaria, has driven a handful of Smurfs through a portal into modern Manhattan. There they take up with a harried PR man (Harris) and his twinkle-eyed pregnant wife (Jayma Mays). A succession of rather smurfin’-obvious gags (Papa et al conceal themselves in front of a Blue Man Group ad) and-is-this-really-happening? interludes (a Guitar Hero musical number set to Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’) ensues. There’s some shameless trafficking in cultural stereotypes, from Scottish Smurf Gutsy’s love of haggis to the magical-mystical Asian bookshop that, shockingly, isn’t owned by Ken Jeong. But how nice that the film finally allows Joan Rivers and Michael Musto, playing themselves, to share some screen time. Smurftastic! Keith UhlichWeekly box office: Dhs153,987Weekly admissions: 4,148Total box office: Dhs13,892,887Total admissions: 323,403

Friends With Benefits
Right at the start of Friends with Benefits, Mila Kunis denounces Hollywood movies for peddling clichés about true love. She’s just been dumped by a drip with a peanut allergy and lets rip at a poster for a Katherine Heigl rom-com (‘Shut up Katherine Heigl, you stupid liar!’). The script is full of funny, bang-on references like this. And the chemistry between Kunis and her co-star Justin Timberlake is electric.She is a headhunter who recruits his art director to a swanky job on an NYC magazine. Both have sworn off relationships so make a pact: to have a no-strings-attached ‘friendship’. It really is smarter than your average rom-com – which is perhaps as much as you can hope for. But we’re never in any doubt as to the central ‘will they or won’t they?’ question. So for all its hyper-switched-on, nower-than-nowness it’s hard to see how it’s not just another Hollywood movie peddling true-love clichés. Cath ClarkeWeekly box office: Dhs174,599Weekly admissions: 4,464Total box office: Dhs1,721,836Total admissions: 47,162

Hatchet II
This second instalment of Adam Green’s cheeky ode to old-school, axe-to-the-face slasher movies dutifully drowns itself in blood, camp and nostalgia. Hatchet’s sole survivor, Marybeth (Harris), wades back into the Louisiana swamp seeking vengeance upon the malformed ogre (Hodder) who murdered her family. Green hinted at mature filmmaking with his ski-lift terror, Frozen, but he appears to have regressed to another adolescent celebration of filleted flesh. It’s a functional sequel, but with all that slicing and dicing, the director could have at least broken a sweat. Eric HynesWeekly box office: Dhs127,103Weekly admissions: 3,957Total box office: Dhs127,103Total admissions: 3,957

Horrid Henry: The Movie
We admit to never having read American author Francesca Simon’s very British-flavoured Horrid Henry series, but we can see several reasons why Simon’s amusing characters are so popular. It’s unclear which particular book the film was inspired by, suffice to say it involves prankster Henry (Theo Stevenson) disrupting the day of Anjelica Huston’s caricatured Miss Battle-Axe and foiling a corrupt school takeover bid by Richard E Grant’s dastardly Vic Van Wrinkle. It’s disorderly in tone, but not devoid of rambunctious charm. Derek AdamsWeekly box office: Dhs351,013Weekly admissions: 7,236Total box office: Dhs351,013Total admissions: 7,236

Dark Country
This 2009 release is hitting Dubai screens only now, but it’s in 3D and it’s a horror, so the UAE audiences aren’t likely to complain. The directorial debut of Hung actor Thomas Jane (who also stars in the movie) follows a couple en route from their wedding in Las Vegas, who happen to find a body out in the desert; this soon serves to put a dampener on their romantic honeymoon. The independent, all-digital production boasts decent acting chops from its stars, but little else. Nyree McFarlaneWeekly box office: Dhs419,502Weekly admissions: 8,828Total box office: Dhs419,502Total admissions: 8,828

The Three Musketeers
Paul WS Anderson’s efficient digital re-working of Alexander Dumas’s tale of seventeenth-century heroism, romance and friendship is notable only for its introduction of Terry Gilliam-esque, airborne war machines based on designs by Leonardo da Vinci. However, while these flying galleons facilitate some eye-catching aerial battles, the rest of the swashbuckling action is strictly for groundlings. Anderson’s acknowledged model was Richard Lester’s 1973 version, though he has opted to cast actors not stars. Logan Lerman and Orlando Bloom come across as neither. It is impossible to see how the insipid Lerman’s callow wannabe musketeer, D’Artagnan, could help restore the mojos of Matthew Macfadyen’s love-lorn Athos, Ray Stevenson’s larger-than-life Porthos and Luke Evans’s jaded Aramis. Bloom is cast against type as the dastardly Duke of Buckingham, but is acted off the screen by Milla Jovovich, whose Milady de Winter uses her feminine wiles and fighting skills to survive in a man’s world. Otherwise, it’s one for all and all for nowt. Nigel Floyd Weekly box office: Dhs512,306Weekly admissions: 13,742Total box office: Dhs2,663,260Total admissions: 62,291

Killer Elite
With a beefcake physique suggesting oncoming harm, Jason Statham would have made a great ’80s action hero. But acknowledging that he could have kicked ass back then and having to endure a new muscle-neck magnum opus are different, as this film proves. Danny (Statham) is revered in the world of espionage. But as much as he likes blowing up stuff beside his mentor (De Niro), Danny is tired. His retirement is cut short when a pal is kidnapped by a man hunting those who murdered his sons. One of the killers (Owen) isn’t going gently. Cue black-ops missions, chest beating, clever quips and too many elbows to the face to count. By the time Statham beats the snot out of someone while tied to a chair, the skullduggery and schlocky dialogue has worn thin. A few awesome fire fights does not an action film make, and even De Niro’s Ronin-esque interlude can’t shake the feeling that the thrill, like the ’80s, is gone. David FearWeekly box office: Dhs678,420Weekly admissions: 19,433Total box office: Dhs2,882,982Total admissions: 82,778

The Change-Up
It’s Freaky Friday with F-words as this body-swap comedy goes grown-up in search of laughs. Jason Bateman is the serious one (married, kiddies, lawyer, stressed), Ryan Reynolds the dude (single, womanising, jobbing actor, unfulfilled), and courtesy of a magic fountain from the Hot Tub Time Machine school of ironically dumb plot devices, each gets to experience the other’s life. The film’s moralising agenda is swiftly apparent, and pretty one-sided it is too, since Bateman’s return to the bachelor lifestyle has him longing for hearth and home, while Reynolds’s preview of adulthood proves a wake-up call to embrace responsibility. It’s all thuddingly obvious – though, to be fair, sundry outrageous comedy moments keep it lively enough in the meantime, even if the spraying poo gags are more effortful than a spirited sequence where laid-back Reynolds tackles childcare. Thanks to a likeable Bateman and a sterling Leslie Mann as his long-suffering/devoted missus, it entertains – though you’d have to call the whole undertaking workmanlike rather than inspired. Trevor JohnstonWeekly box office: Dhs1,040,059Weekly admissions: 27,202Total box office: Dhs1,040,059Total admissions: 27,202

Abduction
Imagine Transformers without the Transformers, and that’s Abduction, a production-line tween thriller from once promising director John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood). It stars Taylor Lautner, the rippling, dead-eyed mannequin who made his mark in the Twilight films and whose inspiration seems to be the young Schwarzenegger. He’s a dirtbike-riding, pint-chugging, mixed-martial artist bad boy of suburban Pittsburgh, and then one evening, while surfing abduction websites (as you do), he spots a picture of his younger self. Next thing he knows, there are gun-toting hoods at his door threatening to kill all his Facebook friends, so it’s a big old cross-country chase to find his real identity, with the cheerleader from across the street in tow. While the ultra-banal dialogue draws the occasional titter, the action scenes are tame and it’s rife with plot holes that you could navigate a burning blimp through. David JenkinsWeekly box office: Dhs1,199,819Weekly admissions: 36,131Total box office: Dhs1,199,819Total admissions: 36,131

Real Steel
This film takes a classic premise – the bonding of a previously estranged father-son team – and injects a rather unusual and futuristic hook: a world where boxing is overtaken by robots. It’s a little bit action with a huge helping of sentimentality – all in all, this is a movie to take the kids to. Nyree McFarlaneWeekly box office: Dhs1,862,385Weekly admissions: 50,966Total box office: Dhs1,862,385Total admissions: 50,966